Laguna Hills. Welch & Wandsworth

Location: Laguna Hills
Scope: Kitchen remodel
Kitchen design: The Kitchen Lady
Principals on site: Jason and Benjamin

A kitchen built in two woods, and finished as one room.

The kitchen came out and went back in as a full redesign. Custom cabinetry in two finishes, a painted and glazed run above and around, cherry below and on the island. Stone counters, and the same stone carried up the wall behind them. A hammered copper hood over the range, and aged brass on every door and drawer in the room.

The work did not stop at the kitchen door. New flooring went in through the kitchen and on into the rooms beside it, laid to a single level. A fireplace and mantel were rebuilt. A wine bar was built into the wall one room over, in the same cherry and under the same stone. Decorative crown moldings with a hand-applied finish carry around the top of all of it. Almost none of that shows in a photograph of a kitchen, and the parts that took the longest are under the floor and behind the cabinet backs. That is the difference between a builder and a decorator, and it is the only part of this job you cannot see.

Kitchen design by The Kitchen Lady. We are a California-licensed general contracting firm, led by two principals. You keep your architect and designer. We build what they draw.

The room

The same kitchen, from the other end

A tall run of painted cabinetry closes the left wall, the doorway through to the rest of the house sits beside it, and the island stands clear in the middle with the range wall behind. Nothing is pushed up against anything else. Two people can work in here at the same time without either of them having to move.

The hood

Hammered copper, set between two cabinets

The hood was the fixed point. Everything either side of it had to be built to meet it: the cabinet returns, the crown carrying across the top, and the reveals held even down both sides. Benjamin handles the finish work, and this is the kind of junction that either looks inevitable or looks like three things that turned up on different days.

The bar

The same cherry, one room over

A wine bar built into the wall beside the kitchen, in the same cherry and under the same stone, with glazed uppers lit from inside and a wine cabinet set into the run. The new floor carries under it from the kitchen with nothing to step over, which is why it reads as part of the house rather than a piece of furniture pushed against a wall.

Built into this house

Power under the floor

The island stands free, so its outlet is fed from below. That circuit went in before the tile did, and it is the only chance you get at it.

Crown, finished by hand

Decorative crown moldings with a hand-applied finish, carried around the room and returned into the cabinetry rather than stopped against it.

One floor, no thresholds

New flooring through the kitchen and on into the rooms beside it, laid to a single level. Nothing to step over, and nothing to catch a chair leg.

The rest of the kitchen

Select any frame to open it

The sinkA white apron sink under the garden window, with two brass faucets over it.

The rangeStainless steel under hammered copper, with the cabinet run turning the corner beside it.

Glazed uppersGlass-front cabinets lit from inside, over a run of drawers in cherry.

The pullsAged brass, the same on the painted cabinets and on the stained ones.

If your project sounds like this one, we should walk it together.

They walk the lot together before a line is drawn. Jason takes the structure and the site, Benjamin takes the details you live with every day. Both of them are on site, on every project, and we only take a few homes at a time so that stays true.

Serving the greater Orange County and Los Angeles area, and the Altadena fire rebuild.

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